Saturday, November 05, 2016

Leftist Academia: Democrats Rule, Trend Is Increasing | National Review"A new academic study reveals left-wing dominance of top university faculties around the country — that’s not news. However, the study, published in Econ Journal Watch, also suggests that the dominance is likely to grow even stronger. For professors younger than 36, the ratio of registered Democrats to Republicans was an astonishing 22.7 to 1 at 40 top universities. The study sampled professors across the fields of economics, history, communications, law, and psychology, using information from Voter Lists Online’s Aristotle database. “We found that younger faculty have higher [Democrat to Republican] ratios than do older faculty,” said Mitchell Langbert and Daniel Klein, two of the study’s three authors (Anthony Quain in the third). “The trend will continue.” Moreover, the political registration of assistant professors is the most imbalanced of all categories, with a Democrat to Republican ratio of 19.3 to 1. Emeritus professors’ registrations are the least skewed at 8.6 to 1. These statistics suggest that top universities will only become less politically diverse as older professors retire and younger professors take over the commanding heights of their institutions. Among all professors, the study found a Democrat to Republican to ratio of 11.5 to 1. Broken down by field, the results are even more depressing. Top history departments have a ratio of 33.5 to 1. Journalism and psychology are also extremely lacking in intellectual diversity, with ratios of 20 to 1 and 17.4 to 1, respectively. Law schools have a ratio of 8.6 to 1, while economics departments are the least skewed, at 4.5 to 1. Hearing both sides of an argument is essential to learning and forming opinions. “One-sided ideological orientation leads to one-sided teaching, which leads to intolerance of alternative views,” write Langbert and Klein in an e-mail to me.“The ability to disagree requires practice, but neither students nor their professors practice balanced disagreement in universities, because faculty meetings are increasingly held in halls of mirrors...”